This invention relates generally to illumination devices and, more particularly, to a battery backup lighting device that is only activated in a power outage if an associated light switch is in an “on” configuration and either a predetermined sound or motion is detected.
Power outages occur when electricity is interrupted due to lightning strikes from storms or simple failure of components somewhere an electric grid infrastructure. When all of the electricity to a house or business is lost during nighttime hours, the suddenness and completeness of darkness can cause major inconveniences, safety concerns, and even fear. Residents often have to scramble in the darkness to locate a flashlight or, in a longer term outage, for a generator to generate power to power lights.
Various devices and systems have been proposed in the art for immediately restoring all power to a residence or business when a power outage is experienced. Such systems may automatically tap an alternative energy source, such as battery or generator, to energize all lights that were previously turned on. Although assumably effective for their intended purposes, the existing systems may result in a waste of energy in that lights in unoccupied rooms or in rooms that become unoccupied may be energized. For instance, all lights in a residence or business need not be energized by backup power if no person is in some or all of the affected rooms experiencing the power outage. In other words, the existing systems and proposals are not room-by-room specific to the power outage, are not confirmed to being occupied, or are not dependent upon the request of a user to be energized by alternative or back-up power. In today's increased energy-conservation consciousness, the existing proposals and products are undesirable.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a backup lighting apparatus that provides backup power to energize a light source only when the power outage is confirmed, when an associated light switch is confirmed to be in an “on” configuration, and when sensors detect that the associated room is occupied and the occupant has requested backup power be energized. Further, it would be desirable to have a backup lighting apparatus that saves energy by not automatically energizing backup power when an outage is detected.